Do Electricians Need PPE?

Electricians definitely need personal protective equipment (PPE), whether maintaining the electrical grid or repairing electricity in a home or business. Even with the safety features on the electric grid, it is still dangerous to work with electricity. Abolox carries personal protective equipment that reduces the risk of electrical burns and shocks.

Thousands of people suffer injuries caused by electricity every year, causing an employee to miss an average of nine days. Electricity could cause injuries directly or indirectly at various voltages. Of these injuries, nearly one-third happened in private residences and one-third in industrial buildings. Most of these injuries were in the construction industry. However, about 57 percent are in other industries, including forestry, building maintenance, management, and grounds maintenance.

Using the proper personal protective equipment can significantly reduce the risk of injury and flash burns caused by electricity.

Personal Protective Equipment for Electricians

Electricians, whether independent contractors or employees, should always use PPE when working around electricity, including:

• Eyewear
• Gloves
• Head protection
• Hearing protection
• Fire-retardant high-visibility clothing

With the appropriate personal protective equipment, workers can minimize the risk of burns and shocks. If you are an employer, you can order many items in bulk to keep your employees safe.

Eyewear

Electrical arcs can form when working with heavy machinery, welders and electricity. Dielectric safety glasses protect your eyes from these arcs. If glasses or goggles have a dielectric denotation, it means that the glasses and goggles do not have any metal parts that could conduct electricity.

Abolox carries several types of dielectric eyewear, including sealed, half-frame, frameless and over the spectacle. Some of the eyewear we carry is also impact resistant.

Features of some of the eyewear we carry include:

• Rubber nosepiece.
• Rubber temple grips.
• Bifocal lens [Diopter (1.5) – (2.0) – (2.5)]
• Hard coat polycarbonate lens.
• 99.9 percent UVA and UVB protection.
• Meets ANSI Z87.1 standards
• Smoke polarized lenses.

Gloves

About 25 percent of the non-fatal injuries suffered by electricians are burns. You can protect your hands from burns by wearing long gloves that cover your forearms. Even regular gloves provide some protection against electric burns.

Gloves that protect from lacerations also protect you from burns. Abolox carries abrasion-resistant and fire-resistant gloves to reduce the risk of lacerations and burns when working with electricity.

Welder’s gloves are specifically designed to work with sparks and have a gauntlet cuff. They are usually made with split and grain cowhide or goatskin.

Head Protection

Whether you work on electricity in a building or on powerlines, you are often on a ladder or a bucket truck. You need proper head protection to reduce the risk of high-voltage shocks, arcs, and falls. Abolox carries several types of hard hats designed to keep you safe while working on construction sites, with electricity, and from heights, including:

• Balaclava
• Bump cap
• Cap style
• Full brim
• Headband
• Multi-band

Hearing Protection

When working around loud equipment, such as a boom truck or heavy equipment, you should have hearing protection. Ear plugs protect your hearing. Electrical arcs could be 140 decibels or higher. Abolox carries several types of ear inserts.

High-Visibility Fire-Retardant Clothing

Abolox carries several types of high-visibility and high-visibility fire-retardant clothing, including vests, jackets, shirts, pants, and overalls. We carry clothing that ranges from not rated to Class 3 fire-retardant high-visibility clothing to keep you visible and to protect you against arcs and flash fires.

Features of some of the fire-retardant clothing we carry at Abolox include:

• Nomex® material that meets the NFPA 2112 Standard for Flame Resistant Garments and NFPA 70E Standard for Electrical Safety in the Workplace.
• UL Certified.
• Lifetime FR guarantee.
• Adjustable cuff closures.
• ASTM 1930 Certified.
• ASTM F1506 Electric Arc Protection.
• Reflective stripes.
• NFPA 2112 UL Certified.
• Brass break-away zipper.
• NFPA 70E hazard / risk cat HRC1 / 5.1 cal/cm2.
• Protective storm flap.

So that you don’t have to wear bulky jackets, Abolox also carries FR shirts made from 4.5-ounce Nomex (CAT 1 – 4.6 cal/cm2) with a pleated back and tapered styling, breast pockets, button-down collar, adjustable cuffs and tapered sleeves. The fabric is NFPA 2112 Certified and listed by UL.

Additional Safety Equipment

Electricians and powerline workers should also wear protective footwear. The boots should have soles that feature electrical isolation, steel toes, a water-resistant upper, and slip-resistant soles, especially for those who climb ladders and work in bucket trucks.

Belts should be non-conductive, such as leather belts or FR-rated nylon with plastic buckles.

Finally, electricians should use insulated tools. Abolox carries several types of insulated tools, including pliers, wrenches, knives, tweezers, ratchets, cable cutters, screwdrivers, scissors and prybars.

Contact Abolox for Electrical Personal Protective Equipment

Browse through our personal protective equipment pages at Abolox to pick up everything you need to stay safe while working with electricity. You’ll find clothing, ear protection, head protection, gloves, eyewear and insulated tools.

If you don’t find what you are looking for, contact Abolox and we’ll source it for you.

Related problem

What PPE is required for electrical?

Electrical workers shall wear arc rated natural fiber apparel such as long sleeve shirts, long pants, jackets, coats, bib overalls, or coveralls to protect the torso and limbs from arc flash hazards. PPE must be arc rated at or above the incident energy or category level of the equipment being worked on.